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September 29, 2025 · 3:59 pm

Finished Rippin Robin Improvs

The quilt show has come and gone, and I got photos of all of our finished pieces. All nine of us managed to get out quilts finished in time. Three were hung so high that I couldn’t get individual photos, so here is a group shot.

Upper left is Nancy’s; she trimmed her blocks to 5 inch squares. Here are the parts when it was my turn along with my turn on Sharon’s (upper right). Lower left is Donna’s; she requested quarter circles. It seems clear that some members had a goal for their improv as it started. Here are my blocks for her along with a description of the project and the starting three blocks of my quilt. And you probably recognize my quilt at the lower right–the first photo not at a weird angle because of lack of space. Upper center is Myra’s. She had asked for hearts, stars, or whatever. No one made stars, and my ‘whatever’ didn’t make the final cut. Guess I misread her frequent mentions of not having to make hearts. At any rate, here is my block for her and the parts finished at that time. That post also includes Laurie’s elephant fabric, so here is the finish of it.

I don’t know if this was Laurie’s plan all along or if she got the idea after seeing all the parts, but to use our blocks as made fabric for the appliqué elephants was quite creative. And the fabric clearly lent itself to that theme. The treasure hunt is something added to the show to keep younger visitors involved. They get a small prize for finding all the clues.

Leanne had the cute bathing suit print and had asked for no black, so I’m guessing black sashing was in her original plan. I like the way it turned out. Here are my blocks for her. And her finish.

Liz enjoyed making the blocks but struggled over her finish. She claims she took it all apart and started over. I’m not sure if she used blocks as made fabric or if she took them apart yet more than that. Here are my blocks for her, and her finish is here.

I think Mary was the most creative and improvy of us all. She watched a YouTube on improv and applied a lot of what she saw. My blocks for her are here.

rIt is always fun to see variety from similar starting points, but I think this set has been the most fun for me to see develop.

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January 27, 2025 · 6:06 pm

Rippin Robins and Virtual Retreat

I finished my blocks for Rippin Robins last week but am just getting around to posting about them. Here are the first two for Mary.

She asked for a minimum of 3 cuts and made the one with white added. I was less ambitious than the second member who made 5 cuts in order to have a symmetrical design. Of course each made three, but you get the idea from one. I love her print and spent a lot of time deciding what color to add.

I wanted to keep the diagonal line going and decided my variation would be to cross the lines. I knew the points wouldn’t meet because of the method we were using. I rather think I should have made them miss by more so it didn’t look like I was trying to meet and missed.

On to the virtual retreat. Log Cabin was the theme, and a lot of the people were making log cabin quilts for donation. There were also demonstrations of various log cabin techniques. I watched only one, a mini log cabin where the “logs” were 1/8-inch wide. They were paper pieced. Even though I like miniatures, I don’t think this one is in my future.

I had planned to do boring things like make Frankenbatting and sandwich quilts. I got one sandwiched before I decided to do something more fun. First I took out rows that I had made as leaders/enders and stitched them together.

The solids were scraps; the white was a print I had ordered online and found it wouldn’t work for a different project. The top is 36 x 36, perfect for a baby quilt for the firemen. I’ll get it quilted in a week or so. I had worked out an arrangement but accidentally sewed a couple rows differently than planned. I decided it wasn’t worth ripping and redoing.

Then I moved on to the improv round robin that had ended up with a Wizard-of-Oz theme. I’d started with a rainbow print for my center that spoke “Oz” to the first person to make an addition. (Additions could be anything, could be on top of other pieces, and I think maybe we could even cut what was done and reassemble, though I don’t remember anyone going that far.) So folks kept up the theme.

This is what I received once all members had made their additions:

The houses suggested this orientation, but it put the storm after Oz instead of before. Eventually I detached the storm to put it on top. I no longer remember the discussion about the appliquéd star. It felt too much like a sun with rays to keep at the bottom, though. so I let the houses be upside down. After all it was a tornado . . .

I’ll admit, I hadn’t seen the houses when making that orientation decision. The more I thought about it, the more I thought the star might have been meant to say “you are here.” Oh well, not worth ripping to change.

At the time the group was talking theme, I happened to find the girl riding a bicycle print and grabbed a yard knowing I’d need to add something to get the piece to 40 x 60 for a child quilt. Also around that time I found Oz fabric on the freebie table. I added the yellow brick road to the Oz print and then a print that had red shoes in it for the ruby slippers she clicked while saying , “There’s no place like home.” I think the visual effect would be better if I had also used the slipper fabric for side borders to the Oz fabric, but at the time I bought the fabric I was only planning to use a 4-inch square of it.

When it comes to binding, I think I’ll make a scrappy binding using ends of bright bindings from past quilts. Of course I’ll have to add brights, so there will be some stash digging in my future.